Geoffrey Holder, the towering Trinidadian actor best known to film audiences as the villainous top-hatted Voodoo henchman Baron Samedi in the James Bond film Live and Let Die, has died. He was 84.

Holder, 6ft 6ins, first played the role of Samedi in House of Flowers, a Caribbean-themed Broadway musical. He did not originate the character, which was based on a voodoo spirit of the same name traditionally depicted with skull face and top hat and known for disruption, obscenity and debauchery.

In 1973’s Live and Let Die, Roger Moore’s blaxploitation-riffing debut in the role of 007, Samedi is the cackling follower of Yaphet Kotto’s Mr Big/Kananga. He is shot, then thrown into a coffin of venomous snakes by Bond but famously appears in a final scene at the back of a train at the end credits, having presumably used his supernatural powers to cheat death.

Holder’s other notable film work includes that of the narrator in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005. He played a tribal chieftain in 1967’s Doctor Dolittle and a sorcerer in Woody Allen’s 1972 series of vignettes, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask).

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Holder was equally known as a dancer, stage actor and choreographer. He was a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York from 1955-56, and won Tony Awards for best costume design and musical direction for his work on an all-black version of The Wizard of Oz titled The Wiz in 1975, the first black man to be nominated in either category. He also appeared in an all-black version of Waiting for Godot.

Holder died on Sunday in New York from complications related to pneumonia, according to a family spokesperson. He is survived by his wife, fellow Broadway actor Carmen de Lavallade, and their son Leo.

Holder’s death comes less than a month after the death of Richard Kiel, Moore’s opponent as the villain Jaws in two Bond movies, at the age of 74.